California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) fought fire with fire Thursday when he issued a ferocious warning to his state’s colleges and universities, warning them not to accept the terms of a so-called “compact” with the Trump administration or risk losing billions in state funding.

In his all-caps ultimatum (which has been converted to lower-case for this publication), Newsom wrote, “If any California university signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding — including Cal grants — instantly. California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom.”

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Trump extorts 9 major universities to sign transphobic agreement

Newsom’s warning followed news of a letter sent to nine colleges and universities this week offering them “priority” federal funding if they agreed to institute a multi-point agenda reflecting the Trump administration’s priorities to eradicate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), erase trans identity, and muzzle academic freedom in higher education.

The so-called “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” extortion scheme was pitched to nine colleges and universities, including Vanderbilt University, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas, the University of Arizona, Brown University, the University of Virginia, and the University of Southern California, in Newsom’s home state.

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The 10-point plan demands schools deny all recognition of transgender students and staff and bar them from accessing women’s bathrooms, locker rooms; trans student-athletes would be erased from school rosters. It also orders an evaluation of professors’ political viewpoints to ensure there are no “institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas.”

The offer, using taxpayers’ federal funding to extort the schools, amounts to a remarkable, and hypocritical, assault on academic freedom.

“This is a power play, and it’s designed to divide the higher education community,” Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education and a member of the Obama administration, told The New York Times.

Mitchell called the funding threat “the biggest waiver of institutional protections that I’ve ever seen” and “a horrible precedent to cede power to the federal government.”

“I hope that this just hits the ground with a thud,” he added.

Trump has singled out several schools in his vindictive assault on higher education. Some, including Harvard University, have fought back with varying degrees of success. Others, like Brown, have attempted to negotiate with the administration.

The list of nine schools approached with Trump’s offer defy easy categorization, as have those that Trump has previously targeted.

Duke University in North Carolina, considered to be a more conservative campus compared to other high-profile peers, moved early to scale back public-facing DEI initiatives and other programs that would attract the administration’s attention.

Despite that, the school was targeted in July with an investigation over criteria used to select editors at its student-run law journal.  

One possible explanation for the targeting is Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and longtime speechwriter for the president.

Miller is a Duke alumnus with a 20-year grudge against the school, dating to when he was a conservative columnist for the Duke Chronicle denouncing what he called the university’s “monolithic academic environment.”

Trump’s campaign pledge seeking “retribution” appears to extend to his staff, as well.

A letter accompanying the so-called compact was signed by Education Secretary Linda McMahon; Vince Haley, the director of the White House Domestic Policy Council; and May Mailman, senior adviser for special projects at the White House.

It described the demands as an opportunity to work “proactively” with the administration.

“We hope all universities ultimately are able to have a conversation with us,” Mailman said.

It’s an offer that Newsom has vowed to refuse.

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